Be All My Sins Remembered
by Alantie Mistaniu
Summary: I was the more deceived. . . never doubt I love. . . though this be madness, yet there is method in it. . . Three people. One romance. A tragedy beyond anything they could have imagined.
1. Horatio

**A/N:** I've been obsessed with the comparisons of Cloud, Aerith, and Zack to the play Hamlet for a long time, so I decided to try and get some of this out. This is part 1 of 3. It's been ages since I've written anything, so we'll see how this pans out. I hope you all will enjoy it.

**Be All My Sins Remembered  
**

_Horatio  
_

Very few knew of his short romance with the doomed flower maiden. He was much lighter than his fair haired friend, warm and sunny in personality, always ready to laugh and have a good time. It had been easy to make her smile, easy to charm her. She was young, innocent, and inexperienced, but strangely wise for all that. He would have cared for her, he really would have. Such a spirit was rare in this city, and he lost himself from the real world when he was with her. But it was not to be. The moment the golden haired man had fallen into her life, she was lost to him. He would never again see her smile at him with anything more than friendship, would never have her to hold and love and cherish again. It saddened him to loose her- he couldn't lie about that. But seeing his best friend and a girl he cared about so happy mattered to him more. He didn't begrudge them anything- it was clearly meant to be, and who was he to meddle in that?

Yet he feared for them both as he watched from a distance. His friend was becoming more and more unstable, more confused and afraid, angry at the world around him as much as he was angry at himself. He couldn't hear any voice anymore. Not his, not hers, not even his own. What would happen, if he could no longer cling to that thin thread that connected him to reality? It would be the end of them all if he couldn't fight it.

But the girl, so dedicated in her love for him would not leave his side, not even when in a moment of lost self control he turned on her. It would happen again, he felt, despite all of his friend's good intentions, he would break her into a thousand shards, never to be put back together again. She had to know that. But deep down he knew she would not leave him, even if she did know. She loved him, she would not see the danger he posed to her physically and emotionally. Maybe she did know. Maybe she just didn't care.

If she heard his urging her to step back from his tormented best friend, she did not heed him. She only smiled, that carefree innocent smile, her arms full of flowers, loving her fair haired prince even to her death. And he mourned for her- for them both. She was lost, and his friend would grieve, the final push into his plunge to madness. There was nothing he could do but keep trying, useless as though it might be, for his words fell on ears that no longer heard anything but what they wanted to hear.


	2. Hamlet

**A/N:** This section was much harder to write than the first, and I'm not quite sure why. I'm not completely satisfied with the way it came out but I figure I might as well put it up and I can always tweek it later. And as always, I appreciate the reviews and feedback. I do appologize that I might not respond to everyone, but know that I do love to recieve your responses. Thanks to you all!

**Be All My Sins Remembered**

_Hamlet_

They questioned his sanity, he knew it. Everyone did, even his dark haired best friend. Eyes a mirror of his own flooded with worry though he concealed it behind smiles and easy words, always encouraging, always on his side no matter how much he might feel otherwise. Sometimes that was worse than having him leave like everyone else. Knowing that his friend thought he was crazy and stayed anyway to try and coax him back to sanity made his teeth clench. He didn't want pity from anyone. He was tired of being pitied, tired of causing himself reason for pity.

Couldn't they see that he was right? Couldn't anyone understand that he was trying to save them all from the real madman? At least, he tried to tell himself that. It was all very well and noble sounding, but really, it was more for his own purposes than anything else. He could care less about the world. Let it fall apart, crumble and spiral out of orbit, he didn't give a damn. All that mattered was that the man who brought all this ruin and torment upon him paid. But something shifted slightly to change that, and it was all due to her, a small slip of a girl with flowers in her hair and voices in her head. She was the only one who would never call him crazy. The irony of it haunted him.

The moment she had approached him, flowers in the basket hanging from her elbow, he had been drawn to her. There was something so sincere, so good about her it had taken his breath away; she was the total opposite of him in so many ways. But she had her demons too. She just hid them better than he did, did not let them break her the way he had allowed his to. Maybe. Maybe not. It could be hard to tell sometimes past her smiles and laughter, but there were those occasions the mask would slip in his presence, just enough for him to see how hard she struggled beneath. He wasn't even sure that his friend had even seen that side of her, and they had once been a couple. It somehow made her more. . . more real, and not the fragile girl he had supposed her to be.

He never deserved her. Always he had thought she was too good for the world, far too sweet and kind hearted for such a cruel place with its horrible games and violence. She should have been kept somewhere safe, not dragged into his doomed mission. Maybe if he hadn't been so blinded by revenge he would have seen sooner what was in danger of being destroyed, but by the time he did, it was too late.

Her death cut him more than he would have believed possible. It was not until she was gone that he realized how much he had cared for her, how much indeed she had meant. How much he had taken her for granted. She had loved him, protected him in her own way, and stood there beside him even when he had been taken by insanity.

How could he? How could he have treated her the way he had? He'd seen the pain in her eyes when he had been possessed by madness. Had she died, thinking he loathed her? The thought caused him more agony than he could stand. Her limp slender weight in his arms above what was to become her grave was a far easier burden for his body to bear than his soul. The frozen smile on her lips, fingers still and intertwined on her breast- the last image of her he would hold forever in his heart. She had born witness to the best and worst of him, and still, she had smiled at him.

It all came back to him- the delusional, false pretender who believed himself ruler of the world. He couldn't allow that man to continue. It had cost him, cost him more dearly than the revenge was worth, but he had no choice but to go forward. It was as much for her, for his best friend, as it was for himself now. He could do nothing else. He can't let the sacrifices have been for nothing.

He was mad, he knew that now. But still, he would go forward, and with each step, all his sins would be remembered.


	3. Ophelia

AN: After so long, here's the final piece. This didn't turn out quite like I had invisioned, but I'm still happy with it. But I still can't get the comparisons to Hamlet out of my head. Yikes!

**Be All My Sins Remembered**

_Ophelia_

Maybe she was mad as they said she was. After all, she did hear voices that no one else could. That was a sure sign of madness, was it not? She knew though that they were real, though she rarely spoke of them to others. And somehow he knew they were as well. He was the first she had actually admitted the truth to, her fears and everything laid bare for him. He was as damaged as she was beneath that façade of his. He understood what it meant to feel as if you were insane, to hear those whispers in your ears, to see and hear things that couldn't be explained. They both tried their hardest to fit in with everyone else, to appear normal, but in the end, she knew better than anyone how they could never truly belong. That didn't stop her from trying, her smiles and laughter, her enthusiasm making up for her awkwardness. But she knew the truth, and now, so did he.

They thought she was too fragile; both of the men who had sought to shield her, she knew it though neither of them would ever outright say it. Her broken cold love and his sunny optimistic best friend, they looked at her sometimes as if she would shatter and go to pieces before their very eyes. She honestly didn't know whether or not she was frail, all she knew was to keep going forward, because there was nothing else she could do. Maybe she couldn't ever make a difference. Maybe she couldn't stop what was happening to her poor corrupted world, but she could still try even if her efforts were meaningless in the end. It was tearing her love apart, and she could feel him teetering on the edge of madness, ready to be engulfed by it. Even if all she could do was protect him that would be enough for her.

She loved him. That's what it all came back to in the end. No matter what hurtful words he might hurl at her, no matter if he struck her down with his own hands. That was what it really meant to love someone after all. She knew he did not mean it, knew he was not to blame. How could anyone blame him, after all he had gone through? The real person to blame. . . well, everyone knew who that was but everyone chose to turn a blind eye to it. Perhaps love was blind, but that was what it was really about. Acceptance. He had done it for her, how could she do any less for him?

There wasn't much choice. Maybe people saw her as being the weak fragile girl she appeared to be, too feeble to save herself. Maybe she was the crazy young woman who stood her ground, instead of fleeing to prevent her own tragedy. How pitiful some would sneer. But she didn't think she ever could have been saved. Not by her own hand. Not by anyone else's. She did believe in fate, but she also believed in choice. She'd made hers the moment she looked into those brilliant sky colored eyes of her golden haired prince. Life without him, or dying to love him.

A faint smile had curled her lips at the thought. It had been no contest.

And so in the end she would fall into the darkness, flowers twined in the mahogany tresses of her hair that drifted like dark pond weeds in the liquid embrace that enveloped her entire body and took her down, down, into the depths.

Still, she smiled. Mad? Perhaps. But she loved him. That was all that mattered. And when her spirit heard the way he cried out when her life left her body, saw the way he clutched her small broken frame against him, she knew he loved her too.


End file.
